to the US now and in an election year this is the week when the race for the White House usually begins in Earnest there's around two months to go until the big day itself and things are pretty much neck and neck according to the 538.com uh election uh polling Channel their average of the polls the current vice president Kamala Harris has a slight lead she's on 47% whilst Donald Trump is at just under 44% well part of what explains that is an apparent gender divide that exists in the US electorate take a look at these figures from ipsos ABC News and the Washington Post since the Democratic Convention kamla Harrison's has the support of 54% of women and 46% of men for Donald Trump it's the opposite he has the edge with male voters 51% but only has 41% support with women so why is there such a discrepancy between male and female voters well some have suggested that just one of the problems for the Republicans might be Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance he's faced some criticism in the past for comments like this we're effectively run in this country via the Democrats be via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too well I'm joined Now by Democratic poller Joel bennon who's worked for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns thank you very much for joining us just first of all what's your assessment of the strength of of of both candidates at the moment well I think we're headed for a very close election um you know in our country uh unlike yours uh we have this uh Electoral College which means uh the state votes matter uh you have to pile up a number of electoral College votes um and right now it still shows it's a very close race between um vice president Harris and Donald Trump now um we are seeing uh we look typically at a lot of battleground States we call them these are states that are uh cenal if you're going to win um The Electoral College as I said uh where you have to get to a certain number of votes among a collection of states to get to uh winning uh in the Electoral College which is we you don't have popular vote elections here it's not a parliamentary system right now we're seeing in recent polls a very close race um state of Pennsylvania which is a large Battleground state right now is tied I think it leads towards Harris a bit uh she's also leading in some of the Midwestern states Michigan and Wisconson uh Georgia in the south is very close that's a onepoint race um so I think we're looking at what's going to be a few weeks coming up here particularly with our televised debates happening uh critical few weeks um I also think Donald Trump keeps digging a hole for himself um you know he had a a terrible uh week uh he went to Arlington National Cemetery which is of course where we have a lot of military Heroes uh who are uh inter there and buried there um you know and he went there and he's uh he has been a Critic of uh people who fought in Wars called them suckers and losers um didn't know why they would go uh he never went you know he had bone spurs in his heels supposedly uh during the Vietnam era so um he's got some self-inflicted damage here um and in some of the states he needs to win uh it's very close States like Nevada it's basically a one-point race right now pretty much tied Arizona also pretty much tied North Carolina again Trump only has a onepoint lead there and the state of Georgia is tied you know I think that my my comment about Trump um is that as a candidate he has what I call no reparative skills he has no humility he will never admit he's wrong he will never apologize those are not traits that the American people find attractive well I mean the point is the leader of the Free World yeah I mean in terms of what you've just said though that clearly it is very very close and obviously there's been momentum after um the convention for the Democrats and a surge of enthusiasm but there is this gender divide it seems in the polling is that gender gap also there in the Battleground States and what do you think explains it well generally uh what explains it here is that the Republican Party um has you know been the party that's responsible for the overturning of women's right to decide what to do with their own bodies Donald Trump appointed the justices to the US Supreme Court that overturn the predection of Ro v Wade which gave women the right to choose uh when and if they would um you know go to full term uh when they were pregnant or not and that choice should be left to women um and he has also got a terrible track record he has was famously recorded on videotape bragging about sexually assaulting women and saying he could get away with it because he was a celebrity so um and women tend to turn out a little more than men in our presidential elections they are more reliable voters and I think that is a weakness that he has never addressed he's never apologized for anything because he thinks that's a sign of weakness on his part part um and um you know women are the more reliable voters here and uh in particular in some of the Swing States as I've mentioned so um you know unless he can repair some damage which I don't think he's capable of um I think Harris um you know has the advantage now as we head towards election day in November okay we will have to leave it there but hopefully we'll speak again in the next uh couple of months Joel bennerson thank you very much indeed for talking to us today thank you